Posted
by
samzenpus
on Friday November 13, 2015 @01:33AM
from the welcome-to-the-club dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes: A new study from Course Report suggests that boot camps are introducing more women to the tech-employment pipeline. Data for the study came from 769 graduates from 43 qualifying coding schools (a.k.a. boot camps). Some 66 percent of those graduates reported landing a full-time job that hinged on skills learned at the boot camp. Although the typical "bootcamper" is 31 years old, with 7.6 years of work experience, relatively few had a job as a programmer before participating in a boot camp. Perhaps the most interesting data-point from Course Report, though, is that 36 percent of "bootcampers" are women, compared to 14.1 percent coming into the tech industry via undergraduate programs. Bringing more women and underrepresented groups into the tech industry is a stated goal of many companies. Over the past few years, these companies' diversity reports have bemoaned how engineering and leadership teams skew overwhelmingly white and male. Proposed strategies for the issue include adjusting how companies recruit new workers; boot camps could also quickly deepen the pool of potential employees with the right skills.

So in your purview, it's not worth the price of tea in China to find the few who do? You see it less as something girls don't want to do versus something girls are discouraged to do. I, for one, believe it's the latter. But then, I'm a black woman who codes who didn't even learn until past 35 so what the hell do I know anyway?

It was always things that seemed benign, but in hindsight were pretty discouraging. Mind you I'm in my 40's now but I remember in high school being scheduled for a class that taught basic logic and being unregistered and sent to the secretarial course - without my having been asked. Because girls weren't supposed to take that class anyway.The teacher "knew" it was a mistake because I was the only girl in there. This was mid to late 1980's.

Interesting. I was about a decade behind you in school and didn't see anything like that happening, nor hear about it from others. I have no doubt that your story is true, but attitudes change faster than people think. It certainly was an issue in the 80's, but that has changed and not in the last few years. It changed early in the 90's, shortly after more women had to enter the workforce due to the lowering of real wages. I do not doubt that there are still small pockets where this still exists, that

"Attention team. I know all of you have been programmers for years, and hold Bachelors and Masters degrees in CS. But you're also all male, and that's a problem. So to improve diversity on the team, we're bringing in Janice here. Janice is an formerly unemployed housewife who took a 12-week programming bootcamp. She'll be helping us with out new phone firmware update. Say hi to your new team Janice."

"I can Ruby on Rails!"

"Great, Janice. She'll be in charge now guys. And remember to treat her with respect an

You're right, diversity as meaning hiring unqualified people is not a straw man.. it's an anti-intellectual conspiracy theory, us vs those horrible universities who shut us out.. and it's supported with fringe evidence from outlying cases.

(because the best way to prove you like women is to think that "pussy" and "mangina" are insults) Can't say I feel guilty about anything. Your rage might indicate you've some subconscious guilt though.

If there's some booing/whistling/hissing there's a small chance they'll listen and stop.

Don't be ridiculous. They want just one thing: page views.

Do you know why they post stories like this so frequently? Because it gets people to click, comment, and check back for replies. Stories like this keep eyeballs on the site. The more you boo/whistle/hiss the happier the overlord's become. They made the right decision. "Look at how many people commented! Look at that bump in page views! Our advertisers will be pleased!"

They don't work in IT. If they did they wouldn't write the clap-trap they do. I've never seen a more balanced profession and yet they bemoan it like they understand something we're all missing. Get off your high-horse Dice and worry about something other then your short term page hits.

What is the balanced profession you speak of? I've been in several software development shops over my career. In none of them, at any time, were there as many women as men. In some cases, the disparity was very large. There are statistics showing a lot more male than female developers around here.

The more nearly gender-balanced workplaces I've been in were back a fair number of years, and when I was young nobody was pushing girls into programming (partly because very few people had access to computer

the phrase "boot camp" is an insult to all those who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki due to US imperialism and should be replaced with something less militaristic.

They are studying hard to get a job, not going to war. People need a safe space where they can focus on their work and not be harassed by privileged majorities. We should call these training opportunities something less offensive like, Concentration Camp.

Normally as an employee in the field it would be logical for me to be against these things as they increase the supply of labor which drives down my salary theoretically.

But being a long time employee in the field, I know it doesn't work the way these people think it works. You can't just pop in to your local coding boot camp after working for 10 years as an apartment manager or secretary and start crapping out code.

Somebody who grew up spending countless hours nerding out and went from hobby->job will a

With special Social Justice googles and code of conduct you can pretend that god-awful code churned out by the recent quota-hire and darling of the diversity programme is actually genius. If you disagree, you're a racist/sexist.

This whole females-in-tech stuff leaves me with a rather bad taste in my mouth. We're discussing this as if we're discussing an increase in population of an endangered specifes. It's not. I think we'd all be better off if girls in tech would be treated as normal human beings. Celebrating each girl entering the field as if she's something special is really very sexist. In that regard I'm glad this was not the result of some strange get-more-girls-in-tech bootcamp but just a regular normal unisex bootcamp. I

The ironic thing is that all this focus on "women in tech" seems to be forcing the women who are actually good at tech out of the field.

It's admittedly a small sample size, but all the women I knew who were great at programming have since left the field because they're increasingly uncomfortable with the whole "diversity" crap and they want to be respected for being good at their jobs and not just for being women.

So we're forcing out the good women techs and replacing them with women who just want to be faw

These diversity campaigns that are forced down our throats are very annoying and can make the workplace hostile to me. Why should I feel guilty if members of some minorities tend to be less interested in technology than I am, just because I happen to be a white male? As far as I know, I haven't done anything to keep them out and I have instead helped many women and non-white persons. Should I quit my job or commit harakiri? Or am I redeemed, because I also happen to be a gay (and thus a member of an oppress

Women are also severely underrepresented in mining, oil drilling, heavy equipment operation, fishing, logging, plumbing, transportation and garbage collection. We should work hard to encourage more women to take these well paid jobs.

... is perpetuate the idea that women still need to somehow be treated differently than men, which is wholly counter-productive to the genuinely respectable goal of gender equality.

If we want women to be treated as equals in society then people had bloody well better just start treating them as equals... That means that we need to stop fucking focusing on things like disparity in genders in particular fields where there is no technical reason that such disparity should exist. If it does still exist when society is simply treating men and women the same anyways, then who the fuck cares? Stop worrying about stuff that shouldn't matter in the first place and just treat every human being you encounter with the dignity and respect they deserve. Nobody can ask for more than that.

Yes and maybe that's the point. Some say that just addressing this issue perpetuates it. But if you want equality, you're never going to have it if you put your fingers in your ears and pretend this doesn't happen.

Increasing "diversity" (read: instituting gender or skin based racism) is bad when you do so by reducing the quality of people you are working with... No-one is "threatened" by diversity, most welcome anyone who is a pleasant and effective co-worker.

But again, "diversity" is not welcome at the cost of losing touch with reality that work needs to get done.

Which is why the code-camps are a good step, because more women attend them and thus it increases the quality of women hires.

Posting anon because obviously I would be doxxed and/or murdered for these thoughts should I reveal my name.

At that point, your premise is invalid. Therefore any arguments based on that premise have no bearing on anything except your invalid premise.

IOW you can prove anything you like by picking the correct axioms. If you're making an argument about the real world and your axioms are clearly contradictory with something in the real world, then making such arguments is a waste of

I don't think many of us likely think women shouldn't be in tech. I don't. Hired many women myself, in fact, more than men. There have been plenty of articles about code camps and other things that are girls only. If you can't see reverse discrimination when it slaps you in the face, you're just as bad and a SJW.

Those of us in tech just want people to go into tech because they are passionate about it and love it. For the same kinds of reasons I got into it as a kid and not because it's being forced on

Women just feel more comfortable in these environments and thus are more likely to participate.

So, you applying stereotypes here? You assume that women are so weak and fragile that they must be forced to decide to work in tech? Can't they decide for themselves?

Adding opportunities for others doesn't reduce your own opportunities any more than opening up an atheist club diminishes Christian churches.

In fact, I'm even fine with "girl" boot camps and so on. I really don't care whether they exist or not. Just don't cover all of tech news with these SJW things. What would you say if the new york times had an article about atheists every day, the finance part about how "atheists are the unknown potential

We need more diversity. It should be 50% incompetents.^^^This is called proof by counterexample. When you're done arguing fantasies of equality for all in a job that requires precision and logical thinking I recommend you look it up. I have no problem with everyone being given equal opportunity, but at the end of the day I want the most competent person to get the job.

Equality is about equal opportunity. Somehow it has been bastardized into expecting equal outcomes. Trying to force it is just stupid and will result in lower quality and yes, this applies to things like trying to force men into a field. Let people do what they want. Let people try anything, give them the freedom to dream big and swing for the fence. Code camps are fine but they should be open to anyone, anything else is discrimination.

Judge by what they do, not by what's between their legs, who they sleep with, or the color of their skin. This is not a complex subject. We're just making it complicated because people are unwilling to accept that equal opportunity does not mean equal outcomes. Life's not a mathematical equation. There are many variables. If there's something preventing someone from having an equal opportunity than fix that. Stop trying to ease symptoms without curing the cause. First, determine what (if any) causes there are.

Judge by what they do, not by what's between their legs, who they sleep with, or the color of their skin. This is not a complex subject. We're just making it complicated because people are unwilling to accept that equal opportunity does not mean equal outcomes.

I agree with you that there is too much emphasis on equality of outcomes, rather than causes of potential inequality in the input.

However -- the thing is, it IS a "complex subject," because people do have biases, often whether they actively think about them or not. People also are cognizant of social norms and expectations, which can shape the way we act -- not in a nefarious evil sexist or racist way or whatever, but just because it's "what we used to." Social organization can then reinforce these syst

. How about men in nursing? There aren't any significant barriers keeping men out of nursing.

But there are, as you point out:

In this case, the answer seems mostly to do with expectations about gender roles for caregiving.

Which is why we have things like

organizations devoted to increasing the number of men in nursing.

So why aren't there more unemployed or underemployed men training and taking these positions??

In this case, the answer seems mostly to do with expectations about gender roles for caregiving.

Adding:

There's the weird gender role thing that still seems to assume a man in a hospital must be a doctor, while a woman is likely a nurse -- which carries all sorts of bad stereotypes about qualifications, knowledge, etc. between the sexes.

Why does this nonsense persist?

(These sorts of things regarding nurses also get reinforced in popular culture all the time, where just about any portrayal of male nurses in movies or in television is used for comedy or ridiculousness.)

Everyone seems okay with this, but when you apply the exact same reasoning to women in tech... ugh...

Equality is about equal opportunity. Somehow it has been bastardized into expecting equal outcomes. Trying to force it is just stupid and will result in lower quality and yes, this applies to things like trying to force men into a field.

I work in a school where a few people are eagerly trying to get more girls into coding. I think that's awesome. All kids, male or female, should know more about technology--if only to have a better understanding of the world in which they live. Unfortunately, in coding and/or electronics classes, the girls often dumb themselves down to be more appealing to the boys. This leads to the creation of girls-only classes, so girls can work without distractions. These classes ultimately get maybe one or two si

Someone, in another reply, was talking about how this was an acceptable science experiment. I'm not sure we should be doing science that way. Forcing data doesn't seem to be a good method for science, at any rate. Humans are not some group to be controlled like this.

I've not yet given the above much thought and I'd not thought about it previously. Pardon my terse reply but, frankly, I'm not sure what to think - at this time. I'm unwilling to jump to conclusions without more thought and without being able to

I suppose you've read a study in which scientists used their Equal Opportunity meter on all sorts of people, and found them to be about the same?

We can't actually test for equal opportunity. As a male straight cisgendered middle-class white guy of English and Swedish descent, I'm really handicapped in discovering equal opportunity, since it's really hard to discern one's own advantages. ("Privilege" is a loaded word here, but the world has treated me pretty much like it should, allowing me to excel or

Where do you draw the line, ethically, with utilizing humans as science experiments? I won't even bother arguing that social sciences, as practiced, are not science but there's that to consider if you want to be honest with yourself. I think I was pretty clear about my position - there's no science here (no ethical science, at any rate - if any at all) so why you would think I'd advocate for using the scientific method to determine equal opportunity is a bit strange. I'm quite sure that the human is not som

Using humans as science experiments? In this case, a class of experimental humans is getting an opportunity they didn't have before, that might lead to something in the future. What's unethical about it?

What I'm concerned about is artificially restricting people from using their innate traits to best advantage. This means that we find out what the opportunities are actually, and what barriers people have in the way. We use what information we have or can get. Obviously, given certain opportunities,

That's argumentum ad absurdum, which isn't inherently good or bad, it just depends on whether or not the issue is adequately represented.

For example, if out of two hundred applicants ten are more than qualified, diversity doesn't lead to lower quality applicants. 'Best' can depend on subjective things like how you tickled the interviewer's fancy or whether or not you woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

It takes a special kind of person to see celebrating greater diversity as celebrating the decline of another group.

I don't understand it myself. What's wrong with increasing diversity? Is it that you feel threatened because you think you can't compete in the job market? Are you afraid of interacting women and minorities?

A person who disagrees with the diversity rhetoric is not necessarily doing so because they feel threatened. In my case, for example, I see two main reasons to oppose it:

(1) Many of the claims made by the supporters of diversity are irrational claims. See, for example, http://www.ams.org/notices/201409/rnoti-p1024.pdf [ams.org]. An individual who values logic and rational thought should be expected to oppose such claims.

(2) The benefits of diversity are not really apparent to me, but I am increasingly pressured to

Its not as if the industry is setting up gender quotas and free schools specifically for women, the pew study indicates that women have a 2 to 1 advantage in odds of being hired in tech. They see some discrepency in the population figures, and think that any disparity is due to some 'oppression', instead of people choosing to do what they want, in reality its the older devs lot who are discriminated against.

There ought to be a distinction made between computer scientists and computer artisans, these bootcamps are really quite shitty and churn out the worst talent. What I've noticed is that most of the female positions in the 'tech' industry aren't in 'technology', they are in fields that USE technology and not PRODUCE technology, especially the disproportionate numbers of them in 'evangelist', HR, outreach, community managers, business, etc.

The fault, if any, doesn't appear to be with the hiring companies. Some of them probably are unfriendly to women, but most seem to accept women just fine. If, as I suspect, there are unequal opportunities, it's happening before the women enter the workforce. Things like this boot camp and other attempts to encourage more girls into the field will tell us more.

Is it that you feel threatened because you think you can't compete in the job market? Are you afraid of interacting women and minorities?

Sadly, the answer to both of these is "yes". At the more extreme end you have the "red pill" people, who honestly seem to think that all women and minorities are out to get them. In their minds they are just waiting for an opportunity to make a false rape or racism accusation, to drive the white man out. All women and minorities in anything but menial or "traditional" jobs are just diversity hires who stole jobs from white guys.

I like how the poster is implicitly condemning the existence of non-sexual freindship/mentor relationships.

Speaking of mentorship, it's a good job it's just people shouting from the sidelines though. I'm glad there's no one famous in the FOSS community, (for example Eric S Raymond to choose a person at random) making completely unsubstantiated claims that roving groups of wild feminists from the defunct Ada Initiative are trolling conferences

It takes a special kind of person to see celebrating greater diversity as celebrating the decline of another group.

I honestly don't think that's what riles them up, I think it's that we see these stories once or twice a week, every singe week, and some people just get tired of it.

I'm all for women in tech, I think it's a good thing, but I admit sometimes I also get tired of the frequency at which these stories appear. (And I speak as a guy in a tech field who works in a building that's about 75% women-populated, so this whole "women are in tech!" is not exactly a revelation from on high.)

I'll accept that they are genuine when they start advocating for gender equality in other male dominated industries like deep sea fishing and garbage collection. Until then it is an obvious grab for power at the expense of others. In other words "give me your safe, high paying job that you worked hard to get and you go work the dangerous, low paying job that I don't want, because glass ceiling!"

Think, for just a few moments, about why your argument isn't convincing to anyone. It's better if you figure this out for yourself.

give me your safe, high paying job that you worked hard to get

You imply here that women don't work hard to get those safe, high-paying, jobs and that they're forcing men in to dangerous low-paying jobs. This tells me a couple things: First, you don't think women are as capable or hard-working as men. Second, you're afraid that you can't compete in a job market that doesn't marginalize women.

You imply here that women don't work hard to get those safe, high-paying, jobs and that they're forcing men in to dangerous low-paying jobs. This tells me a couple things: First, you don't think women are as capable or hard-working as men. Second, you're afraid that you can't compete in a job market that doesn't marginalize women.

No, I do not imply such. I imply that is what the SJW's, such as feminists, want.
I do not think that women are less capable or hard working in the tech industry, they are just f

No, I do not imply such. I imply that is what the SJW's, such as feminists, want.

You're deeply confused. Try reading that section again.

No, they don't face artificial barriers not faced by men.

Nonsense.

They once did, but they haven't for well over a decade

At least you acknowledge those barriers exist! Now, what do you think changed? How were those barriers universally lifted in the last decade? As far as anyone else can tell, things are the same as they were in 2005.

You are just incapable of seeing through the veil that has been pulled over your eyes

Lol! It's a conspiracy, man! They've been, like, lying to you about everything. The truth is out there!

Anyone disagreeing is now an MRA? What about the flip side, instantly modded +5 insightful; an overly worded straw-man. I should just call those that modded him insightful as vapid SJW feminists, right?

Yes, the/. modding system is flawed. Yes, -1 troll is used as disagree by many. However, to use a brush so large to paint everyone that disagrees with the sacred cow of identity politics is an MRA is laughable.

I think that is one thing that I absolutely hate about modern feminism. They claim moral superiorit

you concede that the internet is shitty.. and with the pathetic attitude toward women rampant even throughout this site.. the thing that -really- pisses you off is that some women can learn about tech in peace.

Oh, look a white knight to defend the honour of women online everywhere! As if, only women are mistreated online? despite some reports to claim the contrary. [yahoo.com] Could you please, remind me what stopped women from coding before? Must have been that Star Wars poster. [facebook.com] Which is more demeaning, one who thinks women are strong and capable enough to enter CS without special treatment or the one who thinks they need a safe space from Star Wars posters and men.

So you know the score, yet you're angry about solidarity or cooperation because that "presupposes women's inability to succeed on their own." Nice one with that brilliant, individualist, philosophy-capsule from the MRA dept!

Personally I now steer clear of women coworkers. The risk of triggering a feminist is just too big.

Interacting with women in the workplace is pretty easy. All you need to do to is behave like a professional and treat them like human beings. It's that simple. No special treatment or changes in behavior should be required.

Or does that require a change in your behavior? Do you find that need distasteful? The fact remains: if you're not acting like a professional, you're a problem for all of your coworkers and your employer.